


Bruises

by brookwrites



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Abuse, Amazingphil - Freeform, Angst, Cheating, DAN AND PHIL - Freeform, Dan Howell - Freeform, Daniel Howell - Freeform, Depression, M/M, Phan - Freeform, Phan Angst, Phandom - Freeform, Phanfiction, Phil Lester - Freeform, danisnotonfire - Freeform, dap, dnp, domestic abuse, phanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 09:28:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13097220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookwrites/pseuds/brookwrites
Summary: Phil can’t take it anymore. For eight years he’s put up with Dan’s abuse, and he can’t do it one second longer. He can’t handle any more bruises.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Lots of abuse: if this triggers you, do not read!!!, cheating, depression, multiple mentions of the vday video

Phil can’t take it anymore. For eight years he’s put up with Dan, and he can’t do it one second longer. He can’t handle any more bruises.

At first they were the best of friends. Phil cared for Dan like a big brother until they fell in love. By 2010, they were the closest of couples, and neither of them could have been happier. But then everything went downhill. 

Phil filmed the video because he loved Dan. He truly did, and he thought Dan did too. But when it was leaked and dubbed the infamous “V-day video”, he was proven wrong. 

Dan hit him. A lot. And it wasn’t their playful banter that he was used to. He was angry, really, truly angry, and he had a right to be. But those punches and slaps hurt. Eventually, they left marks. Phil expected them to stop. He expected Dan to calm down back to his normal self after a while. It turned out that was the new normal Dan. 

Now Phil lives in fear. He wants to leave. He wants to leave so badly, but he doesn’t know how he can. All their fans think so highly of Dan and of the two of them as a duo act. If he leaves Dan, not only will he expose him, but he’ll tank both their careers. Phil doesn’t know if he can do that. 

It’s hard for him to stay positive nowadays. He’s alone in life, for the most part, stuck spending every waking second with someone who doesn’t pay him the tiniest bit of respect. The amount of times he’s had to keep himself from doing something drastic is too many to count. He’s a completely different person on camera than off camera. The two rarely upload because Phil can only occasionally film without a bruise being visible. 

The two just bought a new flat. Phil should have left while he could have, right before they moved. But he passed up on his only chance out, and now he’s more stuck than ever. 

“Morning, Lester.” 

“H-hi, Dan…” Phil’s developed a stutter over the years; every time Dan enters a room he becomes nervous and almost forgets how to speak. All that runs through his head is an image of all the bruises. 

Dan’s face contorts into something Phil only knows as anger. His muscles tense; he’s going to get beaten again. “Is that my fucking Crunchy Nut?” Dan breathes out through clenched teeth. 

Phil looks at the cereal box he’s eating out of. Sure enough, it’s Dan’s. There’s no way he’ll escape this unscathed. Phil can hear every soft step on the tile as Dan approaches him at the table, fists clenched. Instinctively, his fists fly up to his face to defend himself as best he can. Through the holes in his defense, he watches Dan’s hand stretch out. Surprisingly, it doesn’t connect with Phil’s body. 

Instead, it picks up the cereal box. Phil immediately discovers what’s worse than a punch or a slap: the corners of a cereal box. With each collision of the sharply cornered cardboard, Phil recoils a little bit more into his seat. Finally, Dan jabs the box into the corner of Phil’s eye. He cries out from the pain, his hands flying to his eye. A single punch connects with his other, now undefended cheek, and his chair clatters to the ground. A sharp kick to the balls forces another groan out of Phil before his one functional eye watches Dan’s feet trail off into the next room. 

Phil weakly stands up, the blood rushing to his head and blurring his vision. His right eye is just fine, but his left eye’s vision, obstructed by the box injury, is black. He can’t see a thing. 

Phil pulls his phone from his pocket and does a bit of research on how to fix his eye. He’s been hit in the eye before, but usually his vision is only blurry, not completely gone. After five minutes, he still can’t see out of his left eye. Concern settles into his stomach as he thinks back on his experiences. In all the years, he doesn’t think he’s ever been stabbed in the eye. Is it possible that his vision may never come back? Is going to the doctor the best option? 

Is it the only option? 

It can’t be. Phil knows it can’t be. If he goes, the doctor may find out about Dan’s abuse and arrest him. He deserves it. He deserves every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every year of torture he’d receive in prison. But Phil can’t let him go. He can’t bear to show the real side of Dan to his fans. “Hey, Lester. Get in here.” 

Phil tenses up. “Coming!” Phil scuttles into the gaming office. 

“We’re filming,” Dan says, emotionless. 

“We don’t usually film when I have bru-” 

“We’re filming.” Dan forces Phil into his gaming chair and turned on the camera. It’s time for Phil’s camera face. 

After about an hour and a half of hell, the two finally finish filming. Phil’s bruises are evident on camera, he decides after looking in the mirror later. He has a horrible bruise on his arm and a much less visible one on his leg. They’ll know he’s bruised, so he’ll have to come up with a lie. Or he could not. Could it be his chance? No, he told himself. But he wasn’t sure his own answer would hold up. 

Dan doesn’t make him edit this video. Sometimes he makes Phil edit and sometimes he does it himself. “I don’t trust you around unedited footage,” Dan tells him. He still doesn’t understand that excuse when Dan makes him edit when he gets too lazy, but arguing is sure to earn him a few extra bruises. Phil sighs. He’s really just sick of the bruises. 

“Bye, Lester.” Dan doesn’t give an explanation a few hours later when he grabs his jacket and heads outside. Finally free for a few hours, Phil decides to treat his wounds up a bit before going to bed. Still unable to see through one eye, Phil finally decides to head to bed and sit on his phone for a while. By around midnight, Dan still isn’t home. Phil sets his phone down, not sure if he’s going to sleep tonight.

The door opens in the back of Phil’s subconscious. He smiles as Dan crawls into bed beside him. Dan’s warmth fills him up as he wraps his arms around the smaller boy. “My warm bear,” he muttered. This is love. It’s been love for the last two years and Phil has no reason to believe it won’t be love for all the rest they have. 

Suddenly, both their phones start buzzing like crazy. Each of them lean to their respective sides of their shared beds and pick up their phones, both of which are still getting constant messages. 

Family members send congratulations. Fans send screams. Friends send concerned screams. One thing Phil notices in common is the phrase “come out”, which is something he just happens to have not done. Where is all this coming from? Phil frantically pulls up his Tumblr feed, searching the phan tag and going to most recent. Immediately his eyes are met with countless screenshots of him from a year and a half ago. He’s speaking to the camera, to Dan. He remembers that video. It’s private. It’s on his side channel. Nobody can see it. But everyone sees it. 

Within seconds he’s received an email from YouTube. It’s explaining the accidental unprivating of many videos, his included. Everyone can see it. The happiness drains out of Phil. 

He’s ruined their entire lives. 

Dan will understand. He has to understand. He loves Phil. “I made this private video…” 

Phil goes on to tell the whole story. “Wow.” That’s all Dan says at first. In the dim light of his phone in his face, Phil can see Dan’s face fill with rage. It’s unlike anything he’s seen before. Then Phil is on the floor. He’s been pushed off the bed. His tailbone aches from the fall. “I can’t believe you.” 

“I’m sor-” 

“Don’t apologize. Just get out. I’ll clean up your damn mess.” 

“I-” 

“I said get out.” 

Phil hangs his head as he walks to his own “bed”. He rarely sleeps there, but he uses it often for his videos. He lay his head on the pillow and let his salty tears stain the light pillowcase. The darkness of his current feelings seeps into the lightness of the sheets that usually reflect his personality. Phil doesn’t know how to feel; it’s the first time since he’s met Dan that he’s felt even remotely depressed. 

All he can think about is that Dan hit him. Dan never hits him. The two of them fight sometimes, but it’s never physical. It must just be the fact that this is important. He must have just gotten angry. 

Phil wakes up the next morning with a bruise. 

It’s the first of many. That’s what Phil thinks when he wakes up. He has that dream more often than he’d like to admit. He hates reliving the single worst moment of his life, but it’s not like he has much of a choice. At least it reminds him of the few brief moments before when he was happy with Dan, when the two of them were truly in love. How can everything change so quickly? 

Phil glances at his clock. It’s 3 in the morning, and he’s incredibly thirsty for a drink of water. It’s risky going to get it; if Dan’s awake and he hears Phil, he’s sure to get the typical drink of water treatment: a broken glass and plenty of cuts on the feet. Phil decides to sneak out of his room anyway; at this point it’s not like he has much to lose anyway. 

As he passes Dan’s bedroom door on the way to the kitchen, he hears soft moans from inside. The lights are off, but the sounds seem to be growing from inside. The moans seem almost…feminine. That’s not Dan’s voice. Even after all these years of a completely different Dan, he still remembers what he used to be like. His soft laughs and rough moans, his emo fringe and his chestnut eyes, everything. Everything he misses. 

Phil continues to get his drink, originally nearly unfazed by the encounter. After filling his glass at the sink, he hears the door creak open. “See you another night, babe?” 

“Totally. Bye, Dan.” 

Phil turns to watch a tall, blonde girl leave the flat. After the door closes behind her, Dan’s gaze sets on Phil. “What are you doing here?” 

This is when it finally all sets in for Phil. It never really crossed his mind that Dan could be dating again, but now that he’s seeing him with a girl, it feels like a stake through the heart. He doesn’t know why it bothers him at all; he should hate Dan after all he’s done to him. But he doesn’t. He still loves him, just a little bit, and seeing him with someone else hurts more than any bruise ever could. “I live here,” Phil says, his anger feeding his courage. He speaks with more confidence and snark than he has in years. 

“Not if you stop living, you don’t.” As much as Dan hurts him, he’s never made any death threats before. Not actually meaning them. But Phil can tell from the look in those eyes he used to love; he’s not kidding. He steps forward, knocking the glass of water from Phil’s hand. The glass shatters on the floor, the liquid pooling on the floor as the glass rebounds up, a bit lodging in each of their legs. Dan’s left leg begins to bleed, visible with the fact that he’s wearing nothing but his boxers, but it doesn’t stop him. He picks up the bottom of the glass, pointing it at Phil and advancing on him. The glass is covered in sharp spikes. 

Phil quickly dodges the glass hurled at him and stares at Dan. His face shows no sign of remorse. He doesn’t care in the slightest about Phil or even if he’s alive or dead, so why should Phil care about him? Phil takes off to his room, taking advantage of the lock he happens to have. He throws all his clothes into his suitcase along with all the money he can find in his room before taking a deep breath and opening the door. 

Dan takes one look at the suitcase and his eyes grow wide. “Where the hell are you going?” 

“Away from you.” 

“You can’t leave!” 

“I’m about to.” 

“No, you’re not!” Dan lunges at him, but he swings his hard suitcase at him, knocking him back and opening the front door to the flat. It’s a short walk to the main London streets. Even in the early morning, he can wave down a cab and hop in. 

“To the nearest twenty-four hour express clinic, please.” 

Phil’s not going to take any more beatings. He’s not going to get any more bruises. He’s free.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: The same warnings from the previous chapter apply, along with PTSD.

The next hour or so is a blur for Phil. He gets out of the taxi at the express clinic, walking in confident strides in the cold, London night. After that, all he can remember is the rush of multiple doctors coming to see him. At one point, he notices a few of them talking outside the door of the room they put him in, and that’s when he comes back into his senses. 

He’s here.

He ran away. 

Those doctors are probably discussing his bruises. They’ve been through extensive training, he’s sure. There’s no way they can’t tell what’s happened to him. 

Are they going to put Dan in jail? The weak paper on the table Phil was sitting on crinkles loudly as he pries himself off, his feet hitting the floor as he begins to pace around the room. They can’t put him in jail. 

Phil’s love for Dan has practically completely dissipated after tonight, but he still immensely cares for their fans, who think of them as a duo act. What will all of them think when they hear what Dan’s done? Phil should be thrilled about Dan’s incarceration, but he’s not in the slightest. All their fans will know what he’s done to Phil. They’ll all know what Phil finally came to terms with after all these years; Dan doesn’t love him. 

That in itself will break their hearts; the fact that Dan is an abusive housemate will only be the icing on the cake of tears. That he won’t be able to make videos anymore. That their so-called role model has done something so horrible. 

He doesn’t want Dan to go to jail. Despite all he’s done to Phil, Dan still means so much to so many, and he can’t be responsible for his jailing; he can’t be responsible for so many people’s tears. 

He tries to tell the doctors he’s fine. He tries to say nobody hits him. But they insist on sending someone to check out the situation anyway. Phil isn’t planning on going home, and he’s decided that’s definitely a good thing. Not even for the safety of staying away from Dan, but for the trauma of seeing him dragged away by London Police. 

Phil uses some of his suitcase money to get a hotel room. It only takes him a few minutes to realize he forgot a couple of crucial items: his laptop and his phone charger. He only thought to bring clothes and money; his suitcase contains no toiletries, no electronics, nothing. He counts his money and decides he has enough for basic toiletries and a charger before taking a deep breath and opening the door, heading for the store. 

An hour and (luckily) no fan encounters later, Phil slams the hotel room door and pours his shopping bag out on his bed. He plugs his phone in and sets it on the bedside table before picking up his toiletries and taking them to the bathroom and setting them up on the sink. While he’s brushing his teeth so as to feel less disgusting, he hears a faint buzz. 

His phone got a notification. Then it buzzes again. And again. And soon it seems as if it’s ready to fall off the bedside table. Phil drops his toothbrush in the sink, his hands instinctively moving to cover his ears as he tries not to think of the night when his phone buzzed half off the bedside table in Dan’s bedroom. The night when Dan first hit him. The night when his life began to slip away from him and into the clenched fists of the monster that used to be his loving boyfriend. 

Phil rushes to wash the toothpaste from his mouth before discarding his water cup like a candy wrapper and rushing to his still buzzing phone. The notifications move too fast for him to read any one of them, but he knows what they are. 

The police have been to the flat. Dan’s been arrested, and the news has spread like wildfire. Phil completely expected it; the arrest of anyone mildly famous always becomes a hot topic for a few days. Phil sighs, turning off notifications for all social media and responding to a few texts before setting his phone down and closing his eyes. He can’t bear to see the fans’ reactions. 

Days pass and the hype dies down. Phil eventually faces his fears and looks at Twitter first; he has concerned tweet after concerned tweet waiting for him and little to no hate. Tumblr comes next, and he decides he’s going to be brave and searches the phan tag. Somehow, it’s almost bare. The first post that comes up is simple. It states that the tag has basically been abandoned; it’s a ship that shouldn’t exist after all that’s happened, so the phandom seems to have collectively elected to stop posting on the tag. So Phil checks his own tag, and what he finds surprises him. 

There’s a few conspiracy theories, but it’s mostly love towards him and disgust towards Dan. His fists clench for a moment; originally he doesn’t think it right to be that mean to Dan. But then he realizes it hurts when he clenches his fists. It hurts when he stretches his arms. Phil stands up and walks across the hotel room he’s still staying in to a mirror. He looks normal, like him. But when he pulls off his shirt, his pale skin is tainted with bruises. This is what Dan’s done to him. Phil doesn’t deserve this. It’s not his fault. And the fans know that better than he does. 

“Hey, guys,” Phil says into his camera. He sits on his checkered duvet, taking a deep breath. “I’m sure you’re all aware of what’s been going down with me the last few weeks.” His channel has never had such a serious tone before, but it’s understandable now. His story’s out. He’s pretty much exposed to the public. His soft branding really doesn’t exist anymore. Everything’s changed. “There have been a lot of rumors going around the internet, and I think it’s time for me to step in.” 

Phil took a deep breath, ready to do something he never would have dreamed of mere weeks ago. He’s changed more than he originally realized from this ordeal. He’s accepted a lot. It’s not his fault, what happened to him. People needed to know; his fans were supportive and said all the right things. Sure, they were devastated, but they understood; his health came first. Now, he understood too. His health, and the health of others like him, came first. Here, on his usually happy-go-lucky YouTube channel, Phil pulled off his shirt, exposing himself and his bruises to the camera for the first time. He was pretty much exposed. Now he’s fully exposed, ready to share his story. “Today, I’m going to tell you about my bruises.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not usually one to talk about deep topics like this, but I think my theme here was mildly clear: if you have been a victim of any sort of abuse, please try to get help if it’s safe. Whatever you do, do your best to stay safe. <3


End file.
